


daydreams

by rubanrose



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Daydreaming, F/F, Friendship, Happy Ending, Love at First Sight, Strangers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 05:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18025592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubanrose/pseuds/rubanrose
Summary: Jungeun navigates loneliness





	daydreams

**Author's Note:**

> this is a self indulgent fic and the only thing ive been able to write in months plz be nice. also i think the formatting is weird? if it annoys anyone plz tell me and i'll figure it out

Jo Haseul does not belong in Jungeun’s life.

They’re in the same English class during their spring semester. On their first class, Jungeun sits behind her, staring at her hair. Haseul’s hair was long then, reaching her mid back. She runs her fingers through it every few minutes, pushing it back and messing it up and Jungeun wonders what it would be like to run her own fingers through it as they kiss.

Their English teacher asks if anyone is a music major, and Haseul raises her hand.

Jungeun writes it down in her mind and spends the rest of the class daydreaming about kissing her, staring at the back of her head. She doesn’t know her name, but she can’t get her out of her head for the rest of the day.

She doesn’t see her face until their next class.

Jungeun only makes it a minute before the start of class, and Chaewon waves at her.

They haven’t been friends for long, although they have many common friends. Chaewon is sarcastic, and she makes self deprecating jokes that amuse Jungeun in times of despair. She’s the only person she knows in her English class, and they usually share notes and little doodles back and forth all class like middle school students.

The class is full, and Chaewon’s left her backpack on top of the chair next to hers to save it for Jungeun. On the other side of the empty chair is Haseul.  
Round glasses sit atop her high, straight nose, small but charming eyes staring down at her notes. Jungeun is enamoured.

The stranger isn’t even that pretty. Jiwoo, who’s been chasing the beauty of the volleyball team, Heejin, for months now would dismiss Haseul in a second. But Jungeun, who’s always been about the general feel someone puts out rather than what they look like according to societal beauty standards, wouldn’t waste a second before pressing her lips against Haseul’s if the other wanted her to.

She can’t breathe as she drops down in the seat between Chaewon and Haseul. She feels her presence next to her, and it makes her feel awkward. Jungeun knows the girl is tense from how tightly she holds her pencil.

She can’t help but stare at her fingers. They’re long and thin, and she sees them holding hands. She closes her eyes, and there’s a bed, there are rays of morning sun of a spring day coming through the window, and they’re intertwined under the bedsheets. In her daydream, Haseul stares at her as she plays with their connected hands raised up into the light, and Jungeun’s index slides down Haseul’s finger, caressing the soft skin of her hands.

Jungeun finds herself in a gloomy mood for the rest of the day, thinking of how lonely she is.

She craves for love, but the thought of having anything concrete with anybody fills her soul with dread. She doesn’t think she’s meant to be in a relationship, and her own lack of attraction for the rest of the human race seems to convince her it’s just not for her. The last person she’s fallen for was a thai exchange student, right before the end of high school, and Jungeun remembers her laugh sometimes and feels a little bit sad. 

She just doesn’t think she’s good enough to be someone’s other half.

It doesn’t mean she isn’t lonely, and her sexual frustration sometimes drives her up the wall.

* * *

 

Jiwoo and her are working a shift together at the sandwich shop when Jungeun decides to ask about her.

“There’s a girl in my English class who’s a music major, she’s pretty short, with round glasses, small eyes and long hair,” Jungeun says as she wipes the counter, keeping her hands down on the surface in front of her rather than looking at Jiwoo. “Do you know her?”

She knows it’s a long shot, but Jiwoo’s a social butterfly and Jungeun knows it’s her best chance.

“High nose bridge? And pretty fingers?” asks Jiwoo, and Jungeun remembers that she loves Jiwoo.

“Yeah, you know her?”

When Jungeun turns around, Jiwoo is on her knees, hiding under the counter to look something up on her phone. She shows the screen to Jungeun.

“Jo Haseul, right?”

It’s her facebook profile. Jungeun drops to the floor with her friend, stealing the phone from her hands.

Haseul. What a pretty name. She clicks on her profile picture. She holding her guitar, looking down at the instrument. The dimmed lighting of the picture is pretty, it makes Haseul look like she’s glowing.

“I want to kiss her,” declares Jungeun at that moment.

Jiwoo laughs. “You’re so cute.”

"Is she nice? Haseul?”

“She’s sweet, and she’s super talented. A bit awkward. She warms up to people,” replies Jiwoo, standing up to greet a customer.

Jungeun sits on the dirty floor for a bit longer, thinking of Haseul, and she feels warm.

 

* * *

 

One day Jungeun shows up to class, and Haseul’s hair has been cut short. It barely reaches her shoulders. Jungeun regrets the long hair, but by the end of class, she’s warmed up to the new hairstyle.  
She wonders if she should talk to her, only for a second. She decides against it.

Haseul is her fantasy girlfriend. She daydreams about her, and her existence gives Jungeun a reason to show up to English class. She would hate it if real life didn’t live up to a fantasy.

 

When Jiwoo finally gets with Heejin, Jungeun feels even more lonely. Jiwoo starts spending every second with her new girlfriend. Jungeun knows she’s not any less loved than before. She’s just not a priority anymore, and Jiwoo cannot save her from the emptiness in her heart like she used to. Before, Jungeun would say she didn’t need a girlfriend, because she had her best friend and that was all she needed. Now that she can’t lean on Jiwoo anymore, she stops exteriorizing her feelings of loneliness. There’s no one to talk to, and she’s not used to not have someone to update on her every mood.

So when she feels lonely, she thinks of the Haseul she made up in her mind. As she makes her way home by herself, she imagines Haseul sitting by her side on the bus, going home with her. In her fantasy, she leans her head on her shoulder.

It’s unhealthy. Jungeun just can’t help it. She’s so alone.

“Why don’t you just talk to her?” asks one of her coworkers, Yerim as she mops the floor and Jungeun wipes clean the glass display.

“She’s so awkward, it would just be weird. Plus, it would ruin everything. I’m not good with strangers, and she’s not gonna like me. What would I even say?”

“Ask her about class or something,” suggest Yerim.

“Chaewon sits on the other side of me. English class girl would just find it so weird if I asked her instead of my friend that she’s seen me talk to,” says Jungeun.

Yerim admits it would be weird.

“Well, don’t you have team work to do eventually? You could try asking her to be your partner,” proposes Yerim.

Jungeun shakes her head. “There wasn’t any teamwork in the course plan.”

Yerim pouts, out of ideas. Jungeun tells her it doesn’t matter.

Haseul is like Paris.

She looks pretty in the back of Jungeun’s mind the same way Paris looks pretty in her phone’s background. But Paris doesn’t really live up to the idea people make up of it. Jungeun likes to keep Paris as a dream destination, but she wouldn’t visit it if she had the choice. She likes it the way it is, and doesn’t want to ruin the idea she has of it.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes Jungeun dreams Haseul has a fantasy about her too.

Jungeun has fun trying to see herself in the eyes of someone who would be in love with her. She imagines Haseul going through her spotify daily playlist, making fun of her. She imagines Haseul looking up the titles of the books Jungeun reads in class instead of paying attention, reading the summaries. She wishes Haseul would notice how quickly she passes through books, how varied the books she reads are. She dreams Haseul likes her laugh, that it makes her heart beat faster. That she hears her joking around with Chaewon before class, and that she thinks she’s funny.

She wishes the little things about her were interesting to someone, to anyone. She wishes someone would love her so she wouldn’t have to think she’s unlovable. She wants to feel special so she doesn’t have to try loving herself all of her own.

She’s heard somewhere that no one will love her if she doesn’t love herself.

She thinks it’s bullshit. She knows it would be so much easier to love herself if someone else thought she was worth their time. If someone found her pretty or attractive. If someone liked her.

Jiwoo hasn’t texted her in a week. Jungeun feels a little bit abandoned, but there’s nothing she wants more than to see her friend happy. Jiwoo deserves it.  
Jungeun thinks she deserves happiness, too. She knows there are ways other than love to find happiness. Once, a good grade was enough. Once, her career dreams were enough.

Jiwoo deserves it more than Jungeun does, and it’s why she has found someone first. Jungeun refuses to give up love, and she just assumes that love will find her eventually. When she deserves it.

* * *

 

Jiwoo never talks to her about Heejin. Sometimes she forces herself to assume their relationship is going perfectly, and that’s why Jiwoo hasn’t felt the need to share her worries with her. Some other times she forces herself to believe she’s the one who’s all wrong, and normal people don’t overthink everything the way she does.

Jungeun knows that if she was the one in a relationship, she would text Jiwoo every day. Jungeun always overthinks every detail of her life. She would not go a day without needing Jiwoo’s reassurance about herself and about how she could possibly be worth anything to someone else.

And on some days, she can’t convince herself that it isn’t because Jiwoo doesn’t feel comfortable talking to her. Jungeun has shared her deepest and most secret worries with her best friend, and she feels such embarrassment at the thought that maybe she has never let Jiwoo know she could also share her own worries with her that she can’t even look at herself in the mirror.

She thinks she’s the worst friend ever.

* * *

 

“Where’d you buy your pen?” asks Haseul one day. Chaewon is skipping class and Jiwoo wishes she had decided to stay in bed too.

Jungeun is so shocked she forgets to answer and just stares. Haseul laugh awkwardly, looking down at her hands.

“Muji,” she finally replies. “I can’t help myself when I go there, I have to buy everything,” she points to her notebook and her pencil case, both from the Muji store.

“Wow, it’s such cute stationary. Is it expensive?”

“No, it’s not too bad. Well, it’s expensive if you can’t control yourself,” Jungeun laughs a little.

“You’re Jiwoo’s friend, right?” asks Haseul.

Jungeun nods.

“She talks about you all the time. If she’s not talking about Heejin, she’s talking about how her best friend is so smart, and is so good at chemistry, and that she’s the coolest person she knows,” Haseul says.

Jungeun can’t help but tear up.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologizes when she can’t stop the tears from running down her cheeks. “It’s just, I was so worried about being a bad friend to her, and we haven’t been speaking a lot lately,” admits Jungeun.

Haseul tells her it’s okay as she reaches into her bag for a tissue. She hands it to Jungeun, who feels like a fool.

“Sometimes it’s good to just tell people how you feel,” says Haseul, and it feels like a hint.

Jungeun doesn’t give herself the time to change her mind.

“Do you want to go on a date?” she asks Haseul.

“Sure,” agrees Haseul. She takes Jungeun’s pink pen and writes her number in the corner of her notebook.

 

* * *

 

Jungeun finds her best friend in the library. Jiwoo sees her coming, and she pouts, standing up and opening her arms for her friend.

“You idiot,” Jungeun says as she wraps her arms around Jiwoo. “Why did you let me think I was a bad friend?”

“You’re the idiot, you know I could never think that, you’re my soulmate and I love you to death,” Jiwoo cries. “Why didn’t you tell me about your worries?”

“I didn’t want to bother you, you seem so happy now. I thought you didn’t need me,” Jungeun admits, hiding her face in Jiwoo’s hair. Neither of them let go.

“I’ll always need you. I just didn’t want to make you sad or make you feel more lonely,” explains Jiwoo.

They don’t break their embrace for a little bit longer.

“I’m sorry,” apologizes Jiwoo, and Jungeun nudges her with her arm.

“I’m the one who’s sorry.”

 

* * *

 

Haseul and Jungeun hold hands. They wait for the bus, the sun setting behind them.

“You have the prettiest hands,” says Jungeun, lifting it up to her mouth to leave a kiss on Haseul’s skin.

They’ve been dating for 2 months.

“I know, you used to always stare at them in class,” Haseul says.

Jungeun’s jaw drops. “You knew?”

“Sweetie, you’re the least subtle person on the planet. Why didn’t you just ask me out?”

“You were so awkward,” says Jungeun, and Haseul laughs, agreeing. “But also I didn’t want to ruin the fantasy I had of you.”

“Did I live up to it?” asks Haseul.

“You’re a thousand times better,” replies Jungeun.

“By the way, I had about a thousand Muji pens at home,” adds Haseul and Jungeun eyes widen.

“So it was just an excuse?”

“Oh my god, Kim Jungeun, you’re so oblivious.”

And at that moment, Jungeun thinks that maybe her fantasy Jo Haseul doesn't belong in her life, but the real Jo Haseul definitely does.

**Author's Note:**

> wow this is the most personal fic i've ever written  
> except in my life it's french class boy and the story stops where they still haven't talked bc im never gonna say a word to him and i dont want to i just wrote them getting together so this whole thing wouldn't be depressing. lol.


End file.
